Health, fitness, makeup and beauty in your 30s+

Category: Beauty & Makeup

Makeup Revolution is a London-based cosmetics brand that is carried in Ulta stores and on Ulta’s website. You may have noticed the display in your local Ulta store, it has gotten larger over the last couple years and rightfully so! It’s a drugstore priced brand with the quality of prestige makeup. They have also gotten some negative attention recently for their “dupes” of brands like Too Faced and Kat Von D. The photo on the left is only a portion of my Makeup Revolution collection and I want to talk about some of my favorite items from the brand.

It should be noted that their full line is only available on their Tam Beauty website but they do offer free shipping to the US with a $40 purchase which is better than some US-based brands offer! I started getting really enthusiastic about the brand when I purchased the Newtrals vs Neutrals palette. It is full of warm toned browns, reds, and oranges, and at $12 it is a steal – not to mention that MUR is frequently on buy one get one 50% off deals at Ulta. I had tried other eyeshadow palettes from them in the past but the Essential Day to Night Redemption Eyeshadow Palette was unimpressive and it ended up shoved in the back of my makeup organizer. The swatches that I saw of New-trals vs Neutrals made me want to take a chance, even though I had found that the previous eye shadow was not very pigmented and a little dry. The Newtrals vs Neutrals palette was nothing like the one I had tried before! The colors were beautiful and well pigmented for a low priced brand. No, it is not the same quality as a $40 or $50 palette but that shouldn’t be expected from a $12 palette. On the request of some instagram followers, I swatched the palette.

This is a great palette for fall. Warm toned neutrals are still extremely popular and I don’t see that popularity waning any time soon! I had purchased the Iconic Pro 2 eyeshadow palette around the holidays but had forgotten about it because I had also purchased the Tarte Tarteist Pro palette and a bunch of Makeup Geek singles around the same time. I decided that I needed to give the Iconic Pro 2 a chance to wow me and I was not disappointed. It is also $12 but remember with BOGO 50% off if you purchase these at the same time one would be $6. The Iconic Pro 2 is cool toned shades with browns, grays, plus a bold blue and golden green thrown in. Both of these palettes are a mixture of shimmery shades and matte shades that make them both great choices if you’re new to makeup or are just starting to expand your collection but have to stick to a budget. Remember that I’m very pale, typically using the lightest of any foundation, so some of these lighter colors will “pop” a lot more on someone with darker skin.

The real standouts in the brand are the Skin Kiss highlighters, although the baked highlighters are also an incredible value! The Skin kiss highlighters are hands down my favorite highlighters, I reach of them before any of my more expensive highlighters by Smashbox and Lorac. The Skin kiss are available in three super pigmented shimmery shades, Peach Kiss, Gold Kiss, and Ice Kiss. I haven’t yet added Ice kiss to my collection but I definitely will at some point. These are HUGE, the size of a Jeffree Star Skin Frost, and at $9 anyone can afford one.

I also purchased the Ultra Blush and Contour palette in shade Sugar & Spice. It’s a variety of pink, rose, and nude blushes in matte, shimmer, and baked finishes. A little of these goes a LONG way. They are super pigmented and the baked shades are mixture of blush and highlight. There are some warm and some cool tones in this so if you, like me, are just getting into wearing blush on a daily basis this is a great palette to start with. It retails for $10 on Ulta’s website.

It can’t all be perfect though. From my first photo, you may have noticed that I only have two lipsticks. At $5, the Salvation Velvet Lip Lacquer makes it easy to buy less traditional colors like the purple shade Depravity, but these have no staying power. The wear off easily and while many MUR products have 4-5 stars on Ulta’s website you will see most of their liquid lipsticks and lip kits have 3 stars or less. The Salvation Intense Lip Lacquer is not much better when it comes to long-wear, you will be reapplying these throughout the day even if you do not eat or drink. If you have a meal, they will absolutely be gone.

Overall, the Makeup Revolution brand is continuing to make better and better products. They seem to have their finger on the pulse, knowing what is hot right now and which popular products will tempt makeup lovers into trying a low priced dupe. Do you have a favorite MUR product? What has your experience with the brand been like? Comment and let me know!

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Spoiler alert! If you haven’t watched my two videos on my top 12 liquid lipstick brands, you will find out my #1 pick in this post.

This is my full review of Jeffree Star Cosmetic’s Velour Liquid Lipsticks. I talk about which colors I like and which I did not, the differences in the formula between colors, how well they hold up during/after eating and drinking, if they’re transfer proof, everything you could want to know!

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I had to split this into two videos so it wasn’t too long! When I set out to make a video about my top ten liquid lipsticks, I realized that I had twelve different brands so I decided to rank them all. When I don’t like a liquid lipstick, I return it, so these are all brands and formulas that I like – but some I like more than others.

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I had been wanting the Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance palette for the longest time! At $42 it’s not a cheap palette but the value is definitely there. I had swatched this in Ulta many times and more than once had it in my hand to check out and talked myself out of it because I just didn’t NEED it. Finally when I had the chance to get this for free, from Ulta so yes it is 100% authentic, I jumped on it. It took having the guts to ask a question that could have been considered rude but I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained!

If you’d like to hear the story of how I got it for free, in my very first storytime video, check it out! It’s not clickbait, I do have to warn you it’s probably not something that you can replicate.

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If you missed part one of this post, describing what my experiment was and why I did it check it out here. Tl;dr it: I noticed I had literally hundreds of accounts following and then unfollowing me quickly so I identified some red flags for accounts that do it and I decided to try it myself.

Does follow unfollow really get you lots of instagram followers?

I was curious after 200+ accounts followed/unfollowed me, most following and unfollowing within 24 hours, does this shady practice actually get you lots of followers? Are people that dumb because I caught on pretty quickly..? So I gave it a try. I followed ten accounts a day for a week using specific criteria on ones that I thought would be most likely to follow back. As I stated in my last post, I have removed the name and username of the example accounts that follow/unfollow because it is not my intention to call anyone specific out.

Most of the people I talk with on instagram, my followers and those I consider friends, seem to agree that follow/unfollow is rude, shady, or downright evil! So why do so many accounts do it? Does it really get you tons of new followers?

I followed accounts on instagram to get more followers

Unlike the follow/unfollow accounts I did not unfollow people immediately. However I wasn’t interested in all 70 of the accounts I followed so I will be unfollowing some of them. No disrespect to any of those accounts – not every account produces quality photos and as our feeds become clogged we do have to pick and choose who we want to see. I don’t follow accounts that only post giveaways for example, because I like to see photos of what people makeup are using and the looks they are creating with it! It’s also my personal preference but I’m not a fan of the super white, generic, lifestyle type accounts – they all look the same and it this point that look is pretty boring and overdone. I know you know the ones I mean! I like personality, not feeds where I can’t tell one photo from another user’s and where it looks like you’re just trying to appeal to the most number of people. No judgment that is just my preference, to me makeup = COLOR!

I am not unfollowing anyone who followed me back however! 🙂

how can you get more instagram followers

Here is the result of my follow/unfollow experiment.

I followed 70 accounts and 15 followed back. That is a lot of work for not much payoff! I think it could be that people don’t automatically follow back anymore because we are so used to people unfollowing and following just to get the follow. It’s possible some people looked at my feed and weren’t interested and decided not to follow back. Probably some don’t use instagram daily. Overall the time it took to follow and unfollow didn’t seem worth it to me, of course I made an effort to see who had actually followed back and didn’t unfollow them – it is probably quicker for people that don’t care about following anyone and just batch follow and unfollow. That to me still just feels shady and douchey, even with a low payoff I guess it would work to get followers if you are doing it with hundreds of accounts but I can’t see doing that myself.

Unfortunately the best way to get followers is a slow way – to create great content and to slowly build a REAL base of engaged followers over time. I will be sharing the results of my giveaway experiment in the future so stay tuned for those stats!

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I recently did a giveaway on my Instagram. I had heard from friends that people will unfollow you after they don’t win and I had seen on other accounts that people say they track that so people can’t enter future giveaways if they unfollow. I decided it would make sense to do that, so I downloaded a couple “follower tracker” apps. Since my account is small and I don’t make money doing this I wanted only free apps and after using a couple I liked “Followers for Instagram – Followers And Likes” by Social Mana LLC so I kept it and uninstalled the rest.

Follow and unfollow trying to get more instagram followers

It was once I started monitoring that I realized how many accounts follow and then unfollow 12-24 hours later. It seemed like the vast majority of instagram followers were unfollowing soon after following. I am sure you have noticed this yourself but what I didn’t realize before I started using the app was the huge number of instagram accounts that do this! I have 326 followers right now and incredibly, over 200 have followed and unfollowed!

Since the app tracks everything, I can see the vast majority unfollow soon after following so it’s not an engagement thing – the accounts and people that actually care about following me keep following so it’s not a content issue.

You can spot who is going to unfollow and just not follow back

As far as I can tell, everyone thinks follow/unfollow is uncool and not a good way to try to get followers, yet plenty of accounts do it. I actually have three instagram accounts and beginning to track unfollows and engagement I can easily tell who is going to unfollow me quickly and I’ve started just not following back unless the account actually interests me. I do unfollow when someone unfollows me, it seems only fair.

Red flags for accounts that are likely going to do the evil follow/unfollow are having thousands of followers but only following a few accounts. I want to show examples but I’m not trying to call out accounts so I have removed names and usernames. The picture to the right (ironically calls herself “genuine” but followed unfollowed within 24 hours) has 15,000+ followers but doesn’t follow many so I did not follow it back. I was not surprised to notice they unfollowed me soon after following.

Red flags for accounts that will unfollow you

Business accounts nearly always unfollow. Unless it is a brand that you have heard of before and been interacting with (i.e. you followed them first and are familiar with the brand, they have shared your content, they have commented on a post, etc.) they will likely unfollow you. I never follow back a brand that isn’t one I know and use such as Tarte, Covergirl, Maybelline, BH Cosmetics, etc.

The “brand” in the photo of the left doesn’t actually seem to be a real brand and may actually be a spam account. They have over 4,000 followers and are only following 3 and only have 2 posts which is another red flag! I did not follow this account because it did not interest me. It unfollowed me within a day.

Accounts that cover Different SUbjects than you will likely unfollow you

Another red flag is a large account that is not about what your account is about. My accounts cover makeup, fitness and health, and psychology mental health, respectively. If a predominantly fitness account follows my makeup account, that’s a red flag to me that they will be unfollowing me because my subject matter is different than theirs. I have also had really random genres such as sports cars follow my makeup account and again that was a red flag that they would unfollow. I have lots of “lifestyle” accounts and fashion accounts follow me and every single one unfollows.

Does follow unfollow get you more instagram followers?

I was curious after watching hundreds of people unfollow me. Does follow/unfollow REALLY get you a bunch of followers? So I decided to try it myself. Nothing outlandish, for one week I followed ten accounts that I found through hashtags I have used or on the “explore” page of Instagram.

I wanted to make sure to keep it to accounts that were similar to mine so I had the following criteria for those I would follow with no other reason than for them to follow me back:

They had to be makeup focused

They had to have around the same number of followers as me. The reasoning for this is that accounts with thousands of followers are unlikely to follow back in general.

They had to have recent instagram photos, within the last 24-28 hours. If someone doesn’t post regularly they may not get on instagram daily so they wouldn’t have the opportunity to follow back during the experiment.

Those were my only criteria, follow accounts like mine, with a similar number of followers, who were posting similar content. I followed ten accounts a day for a week.

Stay tuned for my results!

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Anyone that follows me on Instagram knows that I have been excited about this palette since a release date was FINALLY announced! Jaclyn Hill was one of the first YouTubers I ever watched and subscribed to and I have never understood all of the hate that she gets. I think she is pretty and sweet. I wanted Champagne Pop but it always ended up that I didn’t have extra money for makeup when it came out so I was determined to get the JaclynHillxMorphe palette.

Please note that if you just attack me and have not even bothered to watch the live swatching before you tell me I “swatched wrong” or if you call me names or use profanity your comment will be deleted and I will block/ban you from all my social media. You do not have to agree with me but we all need to be respectful of each other as human beings with feelings and different experiences.

Jaclynhillxmorphe palette so much hype is it worth it?

Once I saw Jaclyn’s video I knew for sure I was buying the palette, no matter what. Like, makeup before food if necessary! Jeffree Star also reviewed it and liked it, I was seeing all of this mind boggling swatches from influencers – many of whom got the palette for free and reminded everyone to use their Morphe discount code when purchasing. I used Jaclyn’s.

I don’t think anyone had any idea that they would sell 200,000 units in 45 minutes. I was online at 10am (8am pacific time) had it in my cart by 10:04, like I said I was determined to get it. I was very lucky, I got a shipment notification later that day and my palette shipped quickly. I know a couple people who are still waiting!

the colors in the jaclyn hill morphe palette do not look like the swatches

I have to be honest. I used the palette for two looks that I wasn’t happy with and then I did a tutorial for the sunset inspired look that I also wore in my YouTube first impression review. My main problem was that the colors didn’t look on my eyes anything like they looked on my arm when I swatched them. I decided that I would swatch the colors with a brush during my review, something I have never done before.

I was really shocked by the results! Halfway through the first row of colors, I realized I needed to put a finger swatch next to each brush swatch to show the difference – because it was HUGE. For the most part, the colors applied with a brush look nothing like how the colors look in a swatch applied with a finger. You can watch my live swatches in my Youtube video. If you’re only interested in photos, those are below the video.

Swatches of the jaclynhillxmorphe palette with brush and finger swatch

On each swatch, I have listed the color name and indicated which swatch was made with a brush and which one was made with a finger. You can watch me live swatch these in my Youtube video above. After I swatched them on camera, I snapped a picture. I will also note that my palette did not come with an insert listing the colors names, I emailed Morphe but as of today have gotten no response. I did see that they had tweeted an apology and a link but not responding to emails is very bad customer service in my opinion. I will update if I ever receive an email reply. Update: I never received an email but I did receive in the mail today (7/05/17) a postcard with the color names on one side and a photo of Jaclyn with the palette on the other. I think it was outstanding customer service to just go ahead and mail those out to everyone. I’m happy to have received it.Thank you, Morphe! I am pretty sure that these color names are correct but I was going back and forth between the image Morphe tweeted and my palette so if any are mixed up please let me know!

The top or first row of colors has the shades: Enlight, Beam, Silk Creme, M.F.E.O., Faint, Sissy, and Little Lady. Enlight is very shimmery and in real life it looks about the same as Beam just more shimmery. The color in this row that most disappointed me in brush versus finger swatch was Little Lady. It is stunning when applied with a finger but is not very impressive with a brush. Sissy also looks more like a foil shadow, I will try these shades with my Makeup Geek foil brush and report back on whether or not they do better with a foiled shadow brush. Both also took quite a bit of blending back and forth to get even color.

The second row of shadows contains the shades: Creamsicle, Butter, Pooter, Pukey, Hunts, Firework, and Queen. Out of all these shades, it is again the foil looking shade, Queen, that I find most disappointing in brush vs finger swatch. Queen and Firework were both very patchy and I did have to rub my brush back and forth quite a bit to get the color more even. The mattes in this row are better looking and better quality than the shimmer shades although there was quite a bit of “kickback” in the pan from picking up the shades – only Hunts had fallout when applied.

The third row of the palette is eyeshadow colors: Obsessed, S.B.N., Hillster, Roxanne, Jacz, Buns, and Cranapple. My least favorite color in this row is Buns it goes on really patchy and had a lot of fallout. Out of all the rows, these colors had brush and finger swatches that were the most similar. I did find that the reddish orange colors stained my skin after just a couple minutes wearing them so I am interested to see what happens after a whole day of wearing them on my eyes!

In the fourth row of eye shadow colors we have: Royalty, Twerk, Hustle, Meeks, 24/7, Chip, and Mocha. Chip was awful with fallout, you can actually see all the fallout on my arm from the finger swatch but that is because I went in with my finger after using the brush. That fallout was due to using the brush. 24/7 was the most disappointing one in this row from finger vs brush swatch differences but Hustle was disappointing with both. If you watch the live swatching in my video, you can see that I actually went back in to Hustle with the brush because it wasn’t showing up on camera at all with the first try.

The last row is the most pigmented with the exception of Diva which I did have to go back into in order to make it show up. The last row colors are: Pool Party, Jada, Diva, Enchanted, Central Park, Soda Pop, and Abyss. Out of all of the swatches, Jada was closest to the same color with brush and finger swatching. The darkest colors had a good bit of fallout which is not a good thing when you’re putting them on your eyelids! These colors also left stains on my skin after swatching.

My overall first impression of the jaclyn hill x morphe palette

This palette is good but not great. Some colors are just ok but some colors are very nice which leaves me with “good” for an overall. I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars. The mattes are easier to work with and more pigmented than shimmery and metallic shades. I think that if rather than going with the giant Morphe palette they had done a palette half this size like the Kathleen Lights x Morphe palette and just chose the best colors out of these 35 that it would be a much stronger palette.

I think the palette is priced too high for what it is. As I state in my video review, the palette is cardboard which makes it less durable than most of my other (even drugstore priced) palettes. The message from Jaclyn to her subscribers is just glued onto the top of the palette and you can see the glue marks. You can easily see that in my photo to the left. For packaging I give it 1 out of 5 stars. I have used the palette 4 times now and it already has a stain on the outside because it is white cardboard. If it were plastic that would wipe off rather than staining. You are unfortunately paying for Jaclyn’s name and I think if it were closer to the normal Morphe price point it would be a much better value. I think that Morphe could have and should have offered free shipping on this palette, in my opinion $75 to get free shipping is excessive and much higher than the industry standard.

I am disappointed in jaclyn hill x morphe because it was overhyped by influencers

I think my expectation of this palette was too high, but it was high based on all the video reviews I watched. Seeing the swatches that Jaclyn had in her reveal, that Jeffree Star did, that MannyMua did, I was expecting a palette that was on the same level of higher end products like Tarte Tarteist Pro and Anastasia Beverly Hills. Morphe is not a high end brand, they are closer to a drug store brand. When I compare this palette to Makeup Revolution or Catrice, which are more similar brands, it is relatively the same quality. I was expecting a prestige level product based on all of the reviews and the influencer swatches and that led to me having unrealistic expectations as to what this palette should look like.

The bottom line on the jaclyn hill x morphe palette, should you buy when it restocks?

I think whether or not you love this palette depends on who you are. If you have many high end palettes, as I do, you might want to skip this. If this is going to be your most expensive, high end palette, as is the case with many people I’ve talked to about it, you will not be disappointed. I think either way you should go into it expecting it to be a medium-quality product. It’s a step up from a drugstore product but it is not going to beat your prestige quality products. I’m not even going to mention very high quality products like Viseart or Natasha Denona here because clearly it’s not even in the same universe with super high quality palettes. It is what it is. I think you will enjoy it and not be disappointed in it as long as you are not expecting it to blow your mind.

I feel like it’s necessary to say – I still love Jaclyn, I am still a fan. I have not unsubscribed from her YouTube or unfollowed her on any social media. I will support her future collabs, I just will not be buying any Morphe products in the future because for me, the quality isn’t there.